Anna Wetherell and Crosbie Wells's mutual aid and shared concealment

Anna Wetherell and Crosbie Wells’s relationship develops from the embarrassment of an unexpected first encounter into a bond of trust expressed through practical help and deliberate silence. Their closeness is neither presented as a settled romance nor reduced to a single rescue: daily life makes them familiar to one another, and a crisis gives Anna a choice that carries consequences well beyond the moment. Her later determination not to betray Wells’s name shows that their connection persists as an obligation she protects, even when remembering it causes her distress.

An awkward beginning and daily proximity

When Anna first arrived in Dunedin, she entertained a man without realizing that he was the master of the house. Learning this intensified her embarrassment over the following weeks. Wells moved into the rear bedroom at number 35 Cumberland Street, so the two saw one another every day. Their relationship therefore grew within a domestic routine that repeatedly brought Anna face to face with the man whose identity she had misunderstood at their first meeting.

Anna’s self-consciousness affected how she experienced that routine. She was convinced that other people could see a flaw in her character that she could not identify herself, and she treated imagined criticism as both painful and deserved. In response, she tried hard to win the good opinion of those around her, while fearing that her effort to do so was itself obvious. This makes her ease with Wells significant: his view of her differs from the censorious judgments she expects from others.

The impressions Anna made were not uniform. Her plain speech could strike one person as alarmingly frank and another as refreshingly artless; her habit of squinting could suggest fearfulness or calculation. Wells, by contrast, found her simply sweet. He was amused by her frequent embarrassments and had told her so more than once. His response offers Anna a form of acceptance that is not based on correcting or persuading her out of her self-doubt. The evidence does not show that this dissolves her anxiety, but it does establish that his regard for her is warmer and more straightforward than the judgment she imagines around herself.

Witness to Wells’s confrontation with Carver

The relationship changes decisively when Anna witnesses Wells confronting Francis Carver. After Wells strikes Carver and confirms that he is still breathing, Anna appears at the doorway and asks whether he is dead. Her question establishes her immediate position in the scene: she is not directing Wells’s actions, but she is present, frightened, and forced to understand what he has done. Wells answers her plainly. When she asks what he intends to do, he does not answer, leaving her to witness the consequences rather than offering an explanation that might make the episode easier to bear.

Wells then marks Carver with a facial scar and tells him that the scar will make him a man to remember. Anna watches in horror, her hands over her mouth. The scene ties her to Wells through witness, not shared action: she sees the confrontation and understands that Carver has been left alive but visibly changed. Wells then points her toward a decanter and tells her to drink quickly because she will soon be asleep. His instruction frames their immediate exchange as a hurried effort to manage what follows, while also showing that he recognizes Anna’s vulnerability in the aftermath.

Anna responds with a concrete act of assistance. She runs to the bedroom and returns with the gold nugget Wells had given her on the afternoon of their first encounter. Pressing it into his hands, she offers it so he can use it to get away. The nugget has thus changed meaning within their relationship: first a gift associated with their meeting, it becomes a resource Anna freely returns when Wells needs to escape. The gesture does not erase the fear or horror of what she has witnessed; instead, it shows that she acts in his aid despite those feelings.

Loyalty, concealment, and their costs

Anna’s assistance has a lasting moral cost. She remembers the assault in the boudoir of the House of Many Wishes in Dunedin on the night of 12 May with painful clarity. The memory makes her wretched daily, and the knowledge that her tacit collusion helped an innocent man escape unharmed does not relieve that distress. Her recollection holds two consequences together: Wells got away, and Anna remains troubled by the part she played in his escape. The narrative therefore makes loyalty consequential rather than uncomplicated, linking practical aid to a burden she continues to carry.

That bond is tested again when Anna is asked about Carver while her attention falters. She must not betray Wells, she reminds herself, because she has sworn not to do so; she resolves not to mention his name. Her repeated effort to hold back the name is a specific act of concealment, not merely a general feeling of loyalty. It also shows the persistence of the relationship after the immediate crisis: even when Wells is not present to protect himself, Anna treats her promise as binding.

The household arrangement that brought them into daily contact does not last. The day before Godspeed’s departure, Lydia Wells summons Anna and tells her that now Carver has recovered his health, she can turn to Anna’s future. Lydia says Anna cannot remain in the household and that Anna knows the reason. Anna answers quietly that she does. The exchange establishes the end of Anna’s place in the home, but does not specify the reason beyond the parties’ shared understanding. It marks a separation in their circumstances without undoing the trust evidenced by Anna’s earlier aid and later silence.

The relationship’s significance

The relationship is defined less by declarations than by exchanged acts and withheld information. Wells’s gift of the nugget precedes the crisis; Anna’s return of it converts that earlier kindness into immediate assistance. His attention to her embarrassment and her willingness to help him create a reciprocal bond, although the available scenes give that reciprocity different forms: Wells regards and cares for Anna in the household, while Anna risks implication by helping him flee and refusing to reveal his name.

Their connection also brings the novel’s concern with the cost of secrecy into personal focus. Anna’s silence preserves Wells’s escape, but it cannot make the remembered event harmless to her. The same act can be understood as aid to an innocent man and as the source of lasting anguish, and the narrative allows both meanings to stand. Their relationship consequently becomes a bond maintained at a distance: Wells leaves, Anna is told to leave the household, and she continues to protect him through the promise she made.